Data are collected and stored in a database or a data warehouse for a variety of reasons. For example, it is known to collect market research data from a panel of product purchasers so that conclusions about the buying habits of specific population segments may be made. One such panel is operated by the A.C. Nielsen Company. The members of this panel store, in memory, data about the products which they purchase, and forward that data periodically to a central facility. For this purpose, these panelists are generally provided with UPC scanners which they use to scan and store the UPCs attached to the products that they purchase. The scanners are inserted into corresponding docking stations which serve to charge the scanners when the scanners are not in use, and to transmit the UPC information stored in the scanners to the central facility. At the central facility, the data from all panelists are accumulated and correlated in order to generate appropriate reports.
It is also known for a product supplier, such as a retailer, to collect data regarding its product sales so that the product supplier can determine the effectiveness of marketing programs, advertising, promotions, shelf or rack space allocations, product displays, and/or the like. For a retailer, this type of data is generally collected at the point-of-sale terminals where the sales to its customers are processed.
The product supplier might also want to correlate its product sales information with demographic information about its customers so that the product supplier can form conclusions regarding the types of people purchasing its products. For this purpose, it is known for a product supplier to issue customer identification cards which are used by its customers to identify themselves at the time that they make their purchases. Accordingly, the product supplier can correlate demographic information about its customers with its products sales.
None of the arrangements described above, however, provide the product supplier with information about purchases its customers make from other product suppliers, such as competitive product suppliers. This type of information would also be useful to the product supplier who could then, for example, benchmark the effectiveness of its marketing strategies against those of its competitors.
Therefore, the present invention is directed to a system and method for estimating the purchases which the customers of a product supplier or other marketing entity make from other product suppliers or marketing entities.